1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains in general to advertisement placement in online information systems, and more specifically to targeted advertisement placement using conceptual matching based on explicit and/or implicit criteria.
2. Description of the Related Art
While advertising using media such as television, magazines, etc. is common and has been well studied for years, advertising over other types of media, such as the Internet, is still a developing area. The Internet offers opportunities for advertisers to present advertisements to a captive audience, often while the audience members are conducting a search for some item or service of interest. However, placing an advertisement before the right audience can be challenging.
Various methods for placing an online advertisement in front of the right viewers have been used. For example, advertisers might place ads on popular and frequently visited websites where they are likely to be viewed by a large audience. Advertisers might also place ads on websites offering services related to their ads (e.g., travel insurance ads might be found on popular travel websites). Further, advertisers often target their ads to the right audience based on searches conducted by users and based on search terms employed by those users. Thus, the ad for travel insurance might appear in or near the search results of a search conducted for “vacation packages.”
These ad placement methods, however, are often not sufficient to place the advertisement in front of the most relevant and interested audience. Ads placed on popular websites or websites offering related services will still be missed by many interested users who just do not visit those particular sites. In addition, a user's search terms sometimes fail to address the user's true interests. In some cases, the user may not be an effective searcher and so the search terms provide only minimal insight into the services or items in which the user might actually have an interest. The user may also have other hidden interests or preferences not reflected in the general search that is being conducted. For example, a search for a “Costa Rica vacation package” would not itself reveal the user's hidden preference for flying with certain airlines, using particular rental car companies, etc. Ad targeting can thus be hindered by the advertiser's lack of more specific and detailed information about his audience.
Further, a given user conducting a search commonly has many other interests beyond just those topics about which the user is conducting a search. For example, a user currently searching for “plane flights to Houston, Tex. for Christmas” might also currently be interested in vacation deals to Hawaii for a summer trip. Similarly, a job candidate might be conducting a search for a job as a “bartender on a cruise ship” though the user's resume reveals that the user actually has experience as a biochemist in a research laboratory. Thus, while employers associated with cruise ships might want to place ads regarding job openings before this user, an employer in a research laboratory looking for a biochemist might also be interested in having this user view an ad about his job opening. Again, effective ad targeting is hindered by incomplete knowledge about the interested audience.
In addition, the advertiser might have his own particular interests and preferences (possibly including hidden preferences) regarding the persons that he would like to view and potentially respond to his ad. For example, the employer at the research lab might be generally interested in a biochemist with 4 to 7 years lab experience, etc., but might more specifically want to target candidates with 6 to 7 years of lab experience that are familiar with a certain type of lab equipment. Thus, not only the user's preferences but also the advertiser's preferences are relevant in placing an advertisement. Therefore, an ad targeting system can be further impeded by lack of sufficient knowledge about the advertiser and the advertisement he would like posted.